Confessions: All the RPG girls I've loved before

My type? Hmmm. I don't know that I have a type. You see, I like redheads, but I also dig blueheads. I like tall girls, small girls, old girls, and relatively young (but still age appropriate) dragon-girls. Graceful and sweet healing/support types are more my speed than tomboyish tanks, but that doesn't mean I won't consider them. And who doesn't love the sister-but-not-really-a-sister childhood friend?

As gross as it is to say, and for at least this article, I suppose that if I had a type, it would be 2D. Not real. Impossible, and could never exist girls. My type would be RPG girls. But not all of them! I've fallen for very specific ones over my many years of living with my face buried in role-playing games.

I've rounded up by biggest RPG crushes in this Valentine's Day lovefest.

I lied on the type thing in my introduction. I really do have a type. It's Quistis. Blonde, tall, confident. Glasses. Nerdy hot -- there's nothing more attractive than a smart girl to me. Quistis goes way beyond cute librarian, though. She's actually brilliant, working as an instructor at Balamb Garden. Yep, I've got the hots for teacher.

There was a scene where Quistis took her glasses off. I lost it. That's the magic of glasses, folks. You take them off at key times and it kills.

I love her brain, I dig her confidence, and I'm in love with the fact that she's a Blue Mage. But I don't really like her belt (straighten that thing out!), and I would prefer that she put her hair down once in awhile. Someone on Deviantart completed the fantasy for me. I want to eat her hair.

Rinoa HeartillyGame: Final Fantasy VIII

I was not originally part of the Rinoa camp (see above), but on a road trip I took not too long after finishing Final Fantasy VIII, I stopped into a market to buy root beer or Gysahl Greens or something. In the checkout line I ran into a girl that looked exactly like Rinoa -- jet-black hair, huge, intense eyes, soft skin, and that perfect flirty half-smile. She was even wearing the game character's robe-ish, cabled top, though it was white instead of blue.

When she turned my direction her eyes opened even wider, in that impossible way that breathless anime girls in love do. My heart stopped. My head tilted upward. Soft focus. I saw fields of flowers flutter down from the sky; the dingy market started to turn green and breezy. This fantasy only lasted for a second or two before she turned back around to check out, but I've been in love with Rinoa ever since.

GarnetGame: Final Fantasy IX

So, uh…quick question. For a friend. Would liking Garnet make me this friend a pedophile? You know, just asking for some color on the situation. Nothing serious. Just friends talking, right?

AigisGame: Persona 3

Forbidden love? Future love? I'm not yet clear on the technicalities of robot/weapon love, but I'll figure it out for Persona 3's Aigis. Pixie haircut on an android? It shouldn't, but it works for me.

Something about Aigis makes me want to take her out and show her the world. I imagine us having a picnic in the park. She's in a lovely sundress (cover up those hip…things, please) and we're sitting underneath the shade of a large oak tree as it's hot outside, though she'll never sweat. I'm hand feeding her homemade fried chicken from a bento that I made the night before just for this occasion, though she'll never be able to digest it.

I take hold of her face with my hand, wiping a bit of food off her cool, smooth chin. She reaches up with her metal hand to grasp mine, and her eye cameras focus on my eyes. I see her humanity beyond the lenses, sensors, and wires. Beyond her robot-ish toughness, I can clearly see sweetness, kindness, and the desire to live. This is why I am in love.

Nah, I just love her pixie haircut.

AnnaGame: Fire Emblem series

Anna is the newest on my stalker list, though she has been around for a while in the Fire Emblem world. That red hair, that sly smile. I'm this shopkeep's most loyal customer.

In doing the math to try to understand my love for her, I found that 80 percent of my affection comes directly from how she places her fingertip on her chin in a cute, thoughtful way -- her default pose. The other 20 percent can be attributed to the way that she swivels her hips and rocks back and forth in her adorable victory dance. That's all it takes for me. I've never been one for that multi-way with identical twins fantasy, honestly.

NeiGame: Phantasy Star II

This sexy, purple-haired, pointy-eared biomonster was probably my first RPG crush. Loved that choker. I should have never rolled with her on that date to that Climacontrol place.

Shion UzukiGame: Xenosaga series

Again, I love brainy heroines. Xenosaga's beautiful, bespectacled scientist is brilliant enough that she heads up research and development that would blow a rocket scientist's mind, but is still cool enough that she hangs out with deadly/sexy android weapons during her downtime. I like that she's confident enough to wear things like that skanky two-tone skirt outfit from the first game, but you'd never call her out on it with that huge gun she carries. Oh, and she's a martial artist, so you'd keep your mouth shut anyway.

I love Shion for how tough she is. She had a rough childhood, and things got even worse for her as she became older. Despite losing loved ones and being wrapped up in one of the most complicated, convoluted RPG story arcs ever created, she maintains her positive outlook and cheeky smile. Who wouldn't love a girl this strong?

They turned up the dial from cute to sexy from the first Xenosaga to Xenosaga II for Shion, removing her glasses and showing a bit more skin, but I have a soft spot for the sweet, stupid, and somewhat dorky Shion. You'll never beat pigtails and glasses. Never.

LuciaGame: Lunar: Eternal Blue

I'd be all over Lucia like Ruby (Lunar: Eternal Blue's flying cat) on fish. Princess, savior, destroyer of worlds? Who cares! This delightful deity had me wishing on a dream that seemed far off that she was real somewhere when I first played Lunar: Eternal Blue. To this day, I still want blue hair to be a real thing. I've never looked forward to RPG cutscenes more than I did with this game, and it was all for Lucia. Her and those dragon-summoning legs.

Her royal-ish goddess clothing did something for me. It was like I was after something I wasn't supposed to have. Lucia is 1,000 years and 1,000 levels beyond that unobtainable girl in high school. Class all the way. Just like that far off Blue Star, Lucia is so far away. Untouchable. And that makes me love her even more.